5 Ways to Blow your Next Marketing Pitch

I spent the best part of a week  interviewing marketing agencies at the end of last year. They were pitching to develop a new website for my (former) employer.

Some were good, some were just OK and others…well let’s just say , some were good…

Without naming names, here are some observations on how you might blow your next marketing pitch:

1) Prepare without looking at the current company website, reading the brief, or asking any questions;

2) Don’t waste time actually trying to solve the problem. Just talk about how wonderful you think your company is;

3) Use plain bullet points and no graphics. That’s bound to impress a group of marketers looking for a visually attractive website.

3a) Come to think of it, use standard PowerPoint animation exclusively. Don’t try to use any creative or original presentation techniques.

4) If you have an hour to present, spend at least 45 minutes talking about your company; maybe even run over a little, because your org chart is soooo interesting

5) Avoid answering the specific questions that the client submitted to you, in writing, 2 weeks earlier.

6)…OK, sorry, I said top 5. And the last one is such a BIGGIE, I’ll save it for it’s own separate blog post next week.

Here’s a few things that stood out with the best pitches:

1) A walk-through of  clearly designed comps, in detail

2) A clean and clear philosophy or Mission statement to define the challenge

3) Use of 3rd party research to prove the point

These were a mix of the “big-name” agencies and some lesser known ones, pitching to a division of a Global Fortune 100 corporation. It’s hard to believe that they didn’t bring their A game…so I guess maybe it’s not so hard to beat the big boys, if you just take time to prepare.